Yes, 3S offers tremendous potential to show your creativity - and your dominance. In SF4, there are “god damn, that was sick bro/me” moments, but they aren’t nearly as frequent or intense as in 3S. Oftentimes in SF4, even after a really close game against a strong opponent, I reflect on a match and the most memorable or exciting notes are things like “That was a weird fake cross up in the corner” or “He won that game when I was a few pixels too close to throw that fireball safely” or “FUCK I always try to crouch tech too early after Cody keeps me in block stun for nine seconds straight.” If I play 3S for three hours, guaranteed there are a half dozen legit “THAT WAS NASTY” (or whatever) moments.
I’ll tie this into the “easier” thing by mentioning the common sentiment that “when you lose in 3S, you know why.” I have a theory that 3S is potentially even more addicting, literally, than other fighting games because of the “crispness” and the VERY close relationship between risks/execution and immense in-game rewards. The science of addiction tells us that the quicker a drug acts on the brain, the more addictive it is because the association between the cause/risk and the effect/pleasure is much more powerful in our minds/brains when the time separating the two is small. That’s why drugs that are smoked or injected and fast acting/hard hitting in general (crack, heroin, cigarettes) are, all else being equal, more addictive than slower acting drugs (methadone) or ingesting the same drugs via a method with slower onset of effects (snorting cocaine, sipping wine or beer with dinner). The parallel is obvious here - something sweet but not even close to godlike by 3S standards such as parrying a universal overhead and comboing into super for 40% damage gives me a rush as big as any I ever get from SF4 these days.
And it can’t be explained by me sucking at SF4, because the same disparity of excitement exists when I watch the best players in the world play these respective games. In SF4, I guess Poongko and Sako get me hard sometimes, or maybe a crazy comeback by Umehara or Alex Valle… And when Ricky and Justin popped off on Wolfkrone was pretty sweet. That’s about it though. Even really mediocre XBL scrubs in 3S, by some miracle, occasionally empty super jump in, parry low, and mash the shit out of fierce into Shin Shoryuken and get me hype.
Sound Effects and atmosphere also make the game great. Seth kill down there in archived domination 101 was wrong about hit sounds in one of em. Anybody playing a lot of 4 series Bison/Sakura/Guy, etc. or just watching the videos will probably soon be sick of the LK sound.
Urien has his own blockstun sounds! Dude is made of metal, Iron Body. That’s showing another way they went all out on this one, and uh even in Mugen (make your own characters! “SRK plays the same game everytime, what a buncha lames, we play a different game everytime!”) you’ll never ever hear about that, it may not even be in a Urien sprite sheet/character rip.
Shoot, I still think there’s timing involved with the huge thump of knockdown for telling you when you can tech roll, instead of try to mash it out.
CvS2 has blocking sounds pretty dramatic though, kinda letting you know, you’re gonna block and like it.
I remember when I first started trying to learn both games and I remember 3s being a harder game to learn. Both games have their barriers to entry though and their learning curve plateau. If you look at third strike it’s not a “newbie” friendly game because a lot of your skill is derived from actual experience playing the game and learning situations through trial by fire. If you’re asking a better, more experienced player what you’re doing wrong and how he’s stomping you a lot of times you’ll get a response akin to “I know the game more than you”. Thats because it’s true, good and/or experienced 3s players develop a sense of recognizing player tendencies, playstyles, identifying mindset and conditioning their opponents because of the very nature of the game requires it.
It’s not something that can be summed up with “it was a option select” and then go into detail about what the option select does, what options it cuts off and what you can do about it. It isn’t telling a newbie to “watch out for reversal dp when I’m sitting on 2 bars”, detailing a tricky gimmick-esque setup or explaining a safe jump you utilized over and over. However these are qualities that make the SF4 series a hard door to get through even though it appearing as a newbie accessible game, at it’s heart it’s a very technical game which is exacerbated by big roster. A lot things in SF4 is frame data heavy and system mechanic exploitive. You have to know your characters normal utilities, safe moves, how distance and crouching/standing effect frame data, frame traps, options in different zones, ex move properties, safe jump setups, safe pressure strings etc to really get a “grip” on a character. This isn’t even taking into account what you know about your opponents character and to me that’s what really separates the two games barrier of entry.
To sum up my feelings SF4 is a technical game where you have to do some research and then implement those technicalities that give you a advantage into your daily game. Whereas 3s is a bit more intuitive where you learn by experience since there’s more abstract circumstances when you’re playing.
Imagine you are in a can of sardines as is your opponent. You are a marble, like this. Your opponent, a similar, but distinct, marble. The can of sardines is centered atop a thin wooden stick that holds it above ground, somewhere in the clouds.
The two of you look to keep this can centered atop this stick, because if you don’t, then you will both fall. But you are in conflict with each other and yourselves because you want to best one another but you need the other. So what do you do?
Idk why people think SF4 has hard combos. I managed to complete half of them w/ a pad… And I suck ass on pad. The timing isn’t very strict for button presses (never liked, nor got used to, p-linking so my combos are usually short… And I played 'Rog… DGAF) in SF4 as they can be for 3S. Yun and Yang’s link from mp>lk requires precise timing. I play Mak and lp, lp, lkxxHayate is one of the most difficult things for me to do in the game other than charge partitioning. 3S is more about timing and precision. SF4 is more about memory.
It’s not harder or easier.
It’s all just preference and personal feeling. If it feels good, you play it more and get better and more comfortable. If it doesn’t, you don’t.
Ease of learning shouldn’t be a concern unless you only view the game as a diversion to relax with. You simply do it. If you’re not doing it, then it won’t matter.
If I run into you Warlike, I’ll give you some casual, non-pressure matches. I have a good connection with Holland. I can use most chars in the game at a basic level. If you’re saying you find big combos fairly easy, then may as well stick with Oro, as he can rack up big numbers, for sure. Taking serious matches in 3s though, is often not about continued combos, rather flurries of good damage, maintaining momentum and running a perceptive mental game down on the other guy. That’s all after you’ve got the inputs down tight of course, which due to this netcode, can be highly variable.
I’d say there’s an arcade near Den Haag (in Zoetermeer) if you’re looking for 3sOE games offline. But you’d have to go to drakenslag to check out this thread.
who gave you this impression? (not attacking you, I would honestly like to know. my name on drakenslag is Kareeeeem))
i know it’s the internet but the dutch community doesn’t deserve an “ugh.” especially the guys from before sf4 don’t deserve such a dismissal. I’m not sure if you’ve ever met any of the dutch guys offline but if you had you wouldn’t be saying this. honestly. but it’s your loss if you don’t want to play against guys like AQH and Nosferatu, they’re strong.
And screw you nindo I was supposed to be the friendly guy stepping in!
A few years back when SF4 vanilla came out I finally decided to go offline to one of the regular drakenslag meetings, yet when I arrived after travelling for 1.5 hours with public transportation they basically told me ‘‘sorry bro no room anymore, you new at SF right (Originally VF player)? lol sorry we need skilled players here’’ and that was that. Since then I’ve been an online warrior
Anyway maybe it was a unlucky experience, but it definately soured me a little bit.
I didn’t even know we still had any arcades left besides a few gambling halls that happen to have an Outrun machine in the corner lol. May have to drop by sometime…
ok that sounds really strange and messed up. would’ve turned me off too. can you tell me where that was? (not that anything can be done about it couple years later but im definitely curious now).To be honest it seems like an anomaly, that’s really not how newcomers are treated.
but about the vf thing, are you talking about yourself or asking me? I came into this community via VF. We had a regular offline session every week which might pick up again when FS finally comes out.
Anyways I can guarantee that will not happen anymore.
It was in Roosendaal, not sure of the exact location anymore though as its been awhile, I was pretty young at the time (17, 3 years ago) maybe that was the reason. Anyway let bygones be bygones. I really should get more involved, not sure if SF4AE is played regularly, never played 3s initially so like I said I’m terrible at the game as it is just so different.
Oh and the VF comment was meant about myself. When I was little it was the first fighting game I ever owned and it’s subsequently what got me into fighting games in general.
AE is still played regularly. Roosendaal probably doesn’t have the best reputation for you but last week they hosted a pretty good tournament with other Europeans attending. (I wasn;'t there, I don’t play AE, just ST). Theres plenty of other tournaments and sessions and it also gets play in the arcade nindo mentioned. If you come by I can give you some 3s games as well, I;m shit at it but interested in the game none the less.
About VF, you should register on virtuafighter.com and introduce yourself in this thread http://virtuafighter.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/157611/166 We used to be a really active group but with the lack of updates some of us (mostly me haha) went on to explore other games. With the new version coming out though we’re hoping to get back into our old rythm of regular offline play.
